Tigerman’s Epiphany: New photomontage update of “Titanic” unveiled at the Chicago Architecture Biennial

On October 22nd, marking the 130th anniversary of the Chicago Architecture Club and as part of the ongoing Chicago Architecture Foundation‘s Currencies of Architecture exhibition, Stanley Tigerman unveiled a follow up to his 1978 “Titanic” photomontage. Entitled “The Epiphany,” the new image, somewhat ironically, is a protest against what Tigerman sees as a contemporary infatuation with icons.

Tigerman’s “Titanic.” (Courtesy Art Institute of Chicago)

The image itself depicts Mies Van Der Rohe’s Crown Hall and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao sitting side-by-side on the lunar surface. From the same sky as the original “Titanic,” a bomb is falling to destroy them both. As with its predecessor, “The Epiphany” is less a critique of Van Der Rohe or Gehry, as much as it is of those that hold them and their work as the basis for their own work.

“The problem with icon is that people use it as a starting point,” Tigerman explained to the crowd at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. “Instead of tabula rasa, a blank page. Inspiration is the emptiness of your page, or your blank computer screen.”

“Architects need to teach, in some way,” Tigerman encouraged in the conversation around the unveiling, which was part of a larger event which included discussion of the state of the field and the current Chicago Architecture Biennial. Tigerman also took the time to express his pleasure with the current generation of young architects, and his ambition to hand off the field. “I am very pleased with the current generation. I feel good. I can go now.”

“The Epiphany” and Currencies of Architecture can be seen for free at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.